China plans new stage show on Karl Marx's Das Kapital

Though revolutionaries have disregarded the bourgeois art form, the show's producers insist that in the confident, modern-day People's Republic, opera is a novel way to explain the proletariat's triumph in the class struggle.

"The particular performance style we choose is not important, but Marx's theories cannot be distorted," the Telegraph quoted director He Nian as saying during an interview with China's Wen Hui Bao newspaper.

He, best known for a stage adaptation of a martial-arts spoof, plans to open the production in Shanghai next year, and will borrow elements from Broadway musicals and Las Vegas shows.

There will, however, be no trivialisation of the book's core messages: an economist from a local university has been asked to ensure that it remains intellectually respectful of Marxist doctrine.

To that end, audiences can expect a storyline that appears to be only marginally racier than the original Das Kapital, a dense, 1,000-page tract which has traditionally tested the commitment of even the most ardent Communist reader.

The opera's plot will involve a business where workers begin to realise their boss is exploiting them. They then embrace the Marxist theory of surplus value.

Far from uniting to overthrow the established order, though, some of the chorus line mutiny, others continue as they are, while some engage in collective bargaining. He insists it will be "fun to watch". (ANI)